Gov. Bill Haslam presented his State of the State/Budget Address to the General Assembly outlining his proposals to deal with the state’s current budget crunch, while working towards reforming education and making our economy stronger to welcome new jobs to Tennessee.

The $30.2 billion balanced budget is almost $2 billion less than the current 2010-11 budget of $32 billion.
It contains no new taxes and maintains essential government services by focusing reductions in administrative areas to minimize any impact felt by Tennessee taxpayers.

By LEONARD PITTS JR.
Lyndon Johnson once said of Gerald Ford that he “played too much football with his helmet off.”
Theodore Roosevelt once called William Howard Taft “a fathead with the brains of a guinea pig.”
Harper’s Weekly once described Ulysses S. Grant as “a drunken Democrat dragged out of the Galena (Ill.) gutter.”

It’s hard to characterize TVA’s role in the ash spill cleanup thus far: The fox guarding the henhouse or the chickens guarding the henhouse?

Neither is good.

But however you look at it, it is clear the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s increased role in the cleanup effort is an improvement.

Already, concerned residents are being afforded some comfort with new indepth toxicology and health testing. And as you can tell from our stories on Page 1, the EPA seems to have an improved focus on communication.

The old Roane County Courthouse in Kingston is high on the list, but so is the Temperance Building in Harriman, the Carnegie-built Harriman Public Library, which is nearly 100 years old, and the Southern Railroad Depot in Oliver Springs.

So far, caring people who understand the importance of these treasures — both for tourism and for the cultural heritage of the residents — have helped these structures survive.

Former Roane County elections administrator Tony Brown lost his job because of politics last Friday.

Brown is a Democrat. But a change in the state legislature, from a Democratic majority to more Republicans in power, meant that Republicans also get the edge in county election commissions across the state by three GOP members to two Democrats.

And as a result, and not unexpectedly, Brown was ousted and a Republican was put in his place.

We (and the state attorney general) have issues with that process, but that is another matter.